Networked medical monitoring in the battlefield

With critical data gathered during the battlefields, commanders are able to generate more plans and make better decisions more swiftly. Providing up-to-minute medical information such as physical and psychological fitness of each soldier can significantly help these decisions. The most of current medical information gathering system is in a format of speech or text. To collect this data with mobile devices and to propagate it to the commander, an efficient data transferring, low-power consumption, secure and light-weighted solution is needed. Previous solutions for on-site medical diagnosing and data gathering with portable devices did not address data transfer protocol, security and power-saving issues. In this paper, we propose to extend those local solutions to a dynamically changing, geographically distributed scenario using the battlefield soldier monitoring system (B-SMS). B-SMS is based on peer-to-peer (P2P) networking and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). With the P2P protocol, soldiers within a team opportunistically share their medical records. Soldier P2P communications can be via Bluetooth. The P2P network then elects a peer to upload the information to UAVs using wireless channels such as 802.11 or WiMax equivalents. The UAVs then convey the information to the commander either via multi-hop UA V to UAV communications, or in a delay tolerant mode, by ferrying the data to destination. To validate the proposed P2P + UAV solution, we study via simulation the data dissemination within the unit and the transfer to the base camp through UAVs. The B-SMS system will have the dual purpose of allowing the commander to re-organize combat groups based on physical conditions, and; the medics to prioritize medical intervention, thereby protecting soldiers lives, and supporting commanders strategic decisions. The time requirements of these tasks may differ. In this paper, we will also evaluate P2P delays and UAV transfer delays and discuss their impact on the applications.